Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), as we all know, is the over arching storage system of our cells that allow us to live. Without this storage system, or library of genes and genetic information we would be nothing; I wouldn’t be writing this at my home right know and you wouldn’t have the ability to be reading this. Because this fundamental structure is so vital to life there has to be some sort of protection mechanism, right? Well, there are many, but today I am talking only about one.
Telomeres are a simple idea in that they are the end caps of our chromosomes, but they are beautifully intricate in their importance and the mechanisms they play part in. A common analogy to telomeres is the shoelace example. Think of chromosomes as the lace part and telomeres as the plastic tips (Fun Fact: also called an aglet) that keep the lace from fraying. Telomeres do exactly that, they keep the important DNA in the chromosome from fraying and falling apart.
The structure of these end caps are quite simple in that it’s only a six base pair (A,T,C,G) sequence that repeats over and over again. This sequence varies based on the organism (the human sequence is TTAGGG) but the sequence typically repeats about 3,000 times and can extend up to 15,000 base pairs1. Continue reading Telomeres: The Capstones of Our Life